Outlaw Princess of Sherwood

by Nancy Springer

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  ALSO BY NANCY SPRINGER

  I AM MORDRED

  A Tale from Camelot

  I AM MORGAN LE FAY

  A Tale from Camelot

  ROWAN HOOD

  Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest

  LIONCLAW

  A Tale of Rowan Hood

  RIBBITING TALES

  Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Springer.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-52401-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Springer, Nancy. Outlaw princess of Sherwood, a tale of Rowan Hood / Nancy Springer.

  p. cm. Sequel to: Lionclaw, a tale of Rowan Hood.

  Summary: King Solon the Red attempts to capture his runaway daughter Ettarde and force her into marriage with a rival king who has been threatening his reign.

  [1. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 2. Princesses—Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters—

  Fiction. 4. Robin Hood (Legendary character)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.S76846Ot 2003

  First Impression

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Jaime

  One

  Danger! Etty thought, or sensed, stiffening. She listened one instant longer, and yes, that muffled sound was the clop of hooves on forest loam. Horsemen!

  She ran. Gathering her apron full of cresses, she sprinted toward the tall oaks of Sherwood Forest. Lady have mercy, forest stood everywhere, yet there she was, caught in the middle of Fountain Dale, in the open, and it sounded like many hooves, many riders, very near. The spring rains had soaked the Nottingham Way, and the softened ground had not given her much warning.

  Nor would the forest offer much safety, for only birches and alders were yet in leaf. But the hazel bushes edging the meadow grew thick enough to hide behind.

  Darting for cover, Etty gave the hissing call of the wryneck bird to signal Rowan in the quietest way she could. But Rowan already knew. Out of the corner of one eye Etty saw Rowan, daughter of Robin Hood, lifting her green kirtle, her brown braid lashing like a wildcat’s tail as she tried to run. Rowan’s broken legs had healed over the winter, but were not yet strong.

  She fell.

  With a gasp, Etty saw Rowan sprawl headlong on the spring-green meadow. From just beyond the first bend of the Nottingham Way came the sounds of harness jingling and creaking, the rough voices of laughing men.

  Letting go of her apron, letting cresses strew the grass, Etty dashed toward Rowan, bad memories flashing through her mind, as always when something went wrong. The man trap. As if it were happening right now Etty could hear the horrible jaws clashing shut on Rowan’s legs, could hear her scream, could hear the snap of her breaking bones . . . And when the foresters had come, like an idiot Etty had cried out Rowan’s name, then run away.

  Lionel, Rook, Robin Hood, Rowan herself, they had all said Etty had just showed good sense, running away, for what could she have done against two armed men? But Etty knew better. She knew she had lost her head.

  She knew herself to be a coward.

  Even now, running toward Rowan, she felt the panic again and knew herself unworthy to wear the silver ring, emblem of the Rowan Hood band, the single strand that shone on her right hand.

  Rowan was struggling to heave herself up from the ground, as if she’d had the breath knocked out of her. She had only clambered to her hands and knees when Etty reached her, grabbed her under the shoulders and lifted her, almost carrying her. With all her strength Etty heaved Rowan through a gap in the hazel bushes. Behind the thick, sheltering roots they collapsed together.

  “Thank you,” Rowan gasped, still panting for breath.

  “Shhh.” Etty wanted no thanks.

  Rowan panted, “Toads take it . . . I wasn’t expecting . . . a cavalcade. . . .”

  “Hush.”

  Flat on the ground behind the bushes, huddled into dead weeds and keeping their heads down, they both hushed as the horsemen clattered into the meadow.

  “Halt!” roared a man’s voice less than ten paces away, and there was sudden silence, broken only by the snorting and pawing of horses and the scolding of the jaybirds in the oaks.

  In that silence Etty could hear her own heart thumping in her ears, its pounding beat seeming to say No— no—no. No, it could not be. It was just her craven heart making her imagine that she knew that voice.

  “What say you, sirrah?” the same voice demanded. “You deem this is the place?”

  Another man’s tame tones replied, “Yes, Your Highness.”

  Etty bit her lip to keep from crying out. She felt Rowan’s hand close over hers, warm, steadying. One careless move and all would be over.

  “Are you certain?” barked the harsh voice of Solon the Red, petty king of Auberon. Etty’s father.

  “Yes, Your Highness. It was here. There is the fountain and all.”

  “Hah. Assuming the wench is still hereabouts, then, we’ll have her at our mercy.”

  Wench. He meant her, his daughter, Ettarde.

  He had come to reclaim her.

  Etty started to tremble. She had not yet dared a look at her father, but just at the sound of his voice she felt herself once again Ettarde of Auberon, runaway princess, damsel in distress. For that moment she forgot that she was now Etty, member of an outlaw band. She shook like a frightened deer. All her muscles bunched, and against all reason she felt sure that her angry father could see her; right through the hazel bushes and her brown mantle with its hood shadowing her face he could still see her. She knew that she must be motionless, still and silent like a big-eared mouse in its bed of leaves, or else she would be seen and captured—yet her heart raced, urging her to leap up and run, fly, flee, run away, run away.

  “To your stations!” King Solon roared. “Pitch camp!”

  The shock of his shout made Etty startle all over. If it were not for men leaping from their horses, someone might have heard the brush rattle. Rowan’s warm hand slipped up to Etty’s wrist, gripping her.

  It was not only her own life that depended on silence. It was Rowan’s also.

  Yet in the back of her mind panic babbled, Run! Go ahead, be a coward. Run away!

  Running had worked to her advantage once before. Almost a year ago. An evening in early summer, here, at this very spot, when she had still been a sorrowing princess dressed in white satin and lace, with her father’s men escorting her to be married to Lord Basil against her will. All had been the noise and confusion of men making camp, just as it was now. With her head nestled at the base of the hazel bush Ettarde could hear them yelling orders at each other, quarreling, leading horses here and there. At just such a time last summer she had taken her chance and had run into the shadows of the forest.

  But they would have caught her at once if Rowan had not been there to help her. And Lionel, great oaf of a minstrel who would tremble at the sight of a spider—yet he had faced an armored knight to save her.

  Head down behind the hazel bush, Etty listened to the commotion in Fountain Dale and watched Rowan’s grave, dark-eyed face. She signaled Rowan with lifted eyebrows and a pleading gaze: Now? Please?

  By way of answer, Rowan increased the warm pressure of her grip on Etty’s wrist: Wait. But at the same time, Rowan lifted her head softly, ever so slowly—Rowan had her father’s knack of moving as silently as a spirit in the woods. Etty
watched as Rowan edged over and peeked between the hazels. She saw Rowan’s face go stark.

  Only the sight of evil gave Rowan that look.

  Something evil.

  But no immediate danger. Rowan had not moved. With her heart pounding painfully, Etty eased her own head up until she could catch a glimpse of her father’s encampment through the bushes.

  At first she could make little sense of the bits and pieces she saw between hazel stems. Lances with their butts set into the ground, their pennons bearing her father’s device: a white rose on a red ground. Horses, bay and dapple gray. Men-at-arms in plumed helmets and red quilted tabards with the white rose riding like a breastplate on their chests. A wagon decked in white and red—the very wagon that had carried her, an unwilling bride under guard, to this spot. Hazily Etty wondered why they had brought the wagon along; perhaps it was meant to carry her onward to Lord Basil now? How arrogant of her father to assume he would capture her. There he towered, King Solon of Auberon, still on his blood-bay steed as if on a tall, living throne, his red beard waxed into a precise point like a logic problem, his hard-nailed finger pointing as he directed his men. Even in her hiding place, Etty seemed to feel that finger stab her like a spear to the heart, seemed to feel the glare of his flinty eyes under brows waxed into red wings. Feeling as weak as if she were kneeling at his feet, it took her a moment to realize what project he was overseeing, what evil thing his men were erecting.

  Lady have mercy.

  A cage.

  It stood in the very center of Fountain Dale, at the heart of the meadow, halfway between the forest and the spring that gave the place its name. Ten feet tall, it looked like a toy mistakenly left there by a giant. At Auberon there had been linnets and nightingales kept in cages in the solarium, pretty cages with golden bars aspiring from a circular base to meet gracefully at the top. This cage was like those, graceful and golden, but meant for some far larger songbird.

  Meant for me.

  At first Etty could hardly bear the thought, but then she felt anger start to burn like a dragon in her chest. If her father thought he was going to put her in that cage, he could think again. Not a moment longer would she sit still for his tyranny. Ettarde tugged against Rowan’s hand. Let’s go! Please?

  But Rowan did not respond. Rowan lay there like an outlaw girl carved of wood. And in a moment Etty saw why. As the men stepped back, their work completed, she saw that the cage was not meant for her after all. Or not exactly. With a shock to the heart of her heart, Etty saw that there was already someone in it.

  A woman.

  A lady, rather. Delicate. Slender.

  Barefoot. And bare-legged, wearing only a muslin chemise ripped off at her knees. Hugging her own bare shoulders in the springtime chill. Shivering.

  Long hair the color of tarnished silver flowing down her back.

  A perfect, pale, symmetrical face much like Ettarde’s own.

  Still mouth. Shadowed eyes.

  At her first glimpse, Etty felt her whole body clench around the sudden yearning pain in her heart. She wanted to cry out like a baby.

  My mother.

  Two

  No fire,” Rowan ordered.

  “But my dear Rowan,” complained Lionel, “they won’t see it. There’s rock all around.” The Rowan Hood band sat within a cup of massive stone, sheltered by an encircling grove.

  Etty listened as the others within the rowan hollow talked, but she could not speak, could not react.

  “They might see the smoke,” said Rowan. She was right. Fountain Dale lay not much more than a furlong away.

  “But it’s twilight! They won’t see smoke at night!”

  “Then they’ll see the glow on the crags. No fire.”

  Etty felt as if she were watching and listening from a great distance. Even though she huddled shoulder to shoulder with the others around a sweetwater spring that had not failed all winter, even here, with her friends, she felt alone. Shock hazed her like mist that would not rise, clung to her like the odor of swamp water.

  “No fire, no supper,” said Lionel, pouting his babyish mouth, widening his baby blue eyes to look pathetic. “And what if I starve to death before morning?” Like his gigantic height, Lionel’s prodigious appetite was a joke among them. By his soft sideward glance, Etty knew he was trying to make her smile, but she couldn’t.

  “Cold venison,” Rowan said.

  “And not even cresses to go with it.”

  “Poor wee laddie. No, no cresses. And no singing, either.” Rowan gave Lionel a severe look with laughter hidden behind it. “Yet somehow you will survive.”

  Always the members of the Rowan Hood band joked among themselves, no matter how hard times were—and times had been very hard this past winter. They had joked about not being able to wash without perishing of cold. That had been harder than hunger for Etty, not being able to keep herself clean and dainty, but the others had helped her bear it. They had joked about the fleas and lice that feasted upon their dirty bodies. They had joked about hunger and cold. Joking warmed the cold and defied the rain.

  Or, in this case, the reign of King Solon the Red, too close at hand.

  Rowan added, “They will be sending out scouts. We must take care. No one is to go anywhere alone.”

  “Especially not Etty,” said Lionel, not joking any longer as he turned to Ettarde. “My dear lady, don’t even walk into the brush by yourself.”

  Any other time she would have grumbled at him, “I’m not your dear lady!” Or she would have told him she could relieve herself without his comment or assistance, thank you. But she felt too fogged to reply.

  Rowan said, “The whole time we were hiding behind that hazel bush, I was dreading that one of them might come over and pee on us.”

  Laughter. But Etty could not laugh.

  “Shhh!” With a visible effort Rowan quieted. “We have to think.” Her glance caught on the wolf-dog who lay panting and grinning atop the boulders, and she focused on him with rueful affection. “I don’t know what to do about Tykell,” she said, mostly to herself. “On the one hand, when he’s around, he is our best guard. He can provide Etty with an escort that will not offend her delicacy.” Rowan smiled, but once again Etty could not answer her smile. Rowan continued, “But on the other hand, when he’s wandering, he may venture to Fountain Dale. . . .”

  Rook spoke up. “The forest is vast. We should move.”

  At the sound of the wild boy’s low, gruff voice, everyone turned. Even Tykell ceased his panting to listen. Rook spoke seldom, always briefly, and often with wisdom. Leave the rowan hollow. Move to somewhere else in Sherwood Forest. Leave Fountain Dale far behind until the danger was past. Yes.

  No. Violently Etty shook her head. Her sight blurred.

  She heard Rowan say, “Etty?”

  She hid her face in her hands, longing for the relief of tears, but her eyes felt like hot stones; she could not cry.

  As if sensing the presence of a warm ghost, she felt Rowan kneel in front of her. As lightly as doves, Rowan’s hands settled one on each side of Etty’s head, nesting there like—like a blessing. Rowan, with the blood of aelfe, forest spirits, in her veins—even her touch had a healing power.

  Etty felt strengthened enough to lift her head and sob. “My mother! He’s put my mother in a cage!” Tears stung her eyes. She had not expected ever to see her gentle lady mother again. Such a reunion should have been the happiest of miracles. But no, her father had to have his wrongheaded way. So now this.

  Without moving her hands from Etty’s head, her grave face only inches away, Rowan said, “I know.”

  “He’s making her suffer to bait me!”

  “Shhh. Keep your voice down. They’ll hear you.”

  Etty lowered her voice only slightly. “I don’t care what they do. We have to save her.”

  Rook said, “No. We have to save you.”

  Etty jerked her head away from Rowan’s touch to turn and glare at Rook. Hot and black, like coals, his e
yes glittered back at her from under his shaggy black hair.

  Woods colt, she wanted to snap at him, do you even have a mother? But Etty’s mother had trained her to be a princess, calm and sweet and always in control of herself, behaving with ladylike decorum no matter what. Not very practical rules for an outlaw girl . . . yet, thinking of her mother, Etty forced herself to speak softly. “You cannot save me by making me betray my first loyalty.”

  “Your first loyalty should be to the band,” Rook said.

  “No.” Rowan gentled Etty’s hair again. “We love our mothers first, Rook. Even Robin would tell you the same, I think.” Rowan settled back into her place against the stones.

  Lionel said, “Ettarde.” He spoke like the lord’s son he was. Etty turned to him.

  Lionel said quietly, “Etty, your mother is being humiliated, I know, but how is she in need of rescue? She is not being harmed.”

  Cabbagehead, Etty thought, taking a deep breath to keep from shouting at him. Between clenched teeth she said, “Can’t you see that she is out in the cold in only her shift—”

  “I have not seen her at all.”

  He truly did not understand? “Well, she is.”

  “We don’t know that. Perhaps he has taken her in now.”

  “You don’t know my father,” Etty said.

  “True.”

  “He will leave her out there and he will starve her.” Etty remembered what her father had done to her, his daughter and his only living child, after he had arranged for her to marry Lord Basil but she had refused. He had locked her up to starve also. Not in a cage. He had imprisoned her in her tower chamber with its canopied goosedown bed, tree-of-Eden tapestries, her window paned with real glass and by the window her chair carved all over with griffins, and her linens and embroidery flosses and—and her little shelf of books; that was the only memory that gave Ettarde a pang of longing. Her library bound in tooled and gilded kidskin: Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Pliny, Herodotus, Plato, and more. Starving in her chamber, she had taken comfort in reading the philosophers—at first. Later she had not been able to read for thinking of food.